Experts try to close health-care gap for minorities

August 13, 2008|By Arelis Hernandez, Sentinel Staff Writer

Health experts are meeting in Tampa today to find ways of improving medical care for minorities across Florida.

They have identified gaps in seven areas of health care -- cancer, diabetes, heart disease, oral health, adult and child immunizations, maternal/infant health and HIV/AIDS. At this week's Minority Health Disparities Summit, they are focusing their efforts on developing strategies to close the gaps.

"It's a lot easier to ask questions than find solutions," said Dr. Emile Commedore, director of the state's Office of Minority Health. "The fact is Florida is a diverse state that is becoming even more diverse. We know that most of these health disparities are prevalent."

With a growing population, Florida's minorities face barriers to accessing health care, including the lack of insurance, that make them less healthy than the their white counterparts.

In 2004, 31 percent of Hispanics and 22 percent of blacks younger than 65 were uninsured, compared with 14.3 percent of whites, according to the 2004 Florida Health Insurance Study.

Though the state has made significant strides in reducing inequality, gaping chasms remain, Commedore said.

Nationally, cervical-cancer rates have decreased, but in Florida the disease continues to plague minority populations that rarely seek preventive care, said Susan Fleming, program administrator for the state cancer program. She said when it comes to cancer, education and income levels accompany disparity.

"The incidence is similar [among different groups]," Fleming said. "But when you look at a poor, less-educated population, the mortality rates are higher."

Hispanic and black women die more frequently from cervical cancer because many are diagnosed in the late stages of the disease, said Youjie Huang, a chronic-disease epidemiologist for the state health department. Black women die nearly twice as often from the cancer as white women, according to state mortality rates.

In Florida, 910 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2005. Of those, 39 percent of Hispanic women and 52 percent of black women were diagnosed during the advanced phases compared with 44 percent of white women. .

For a preventable disease, the numbers are shameful, said Josephine Mercado, executive director of the Hispanic Health Initiative, adding that many women from minority groups don't get annual Pap smear screenings that are available through the health department.

She said more education is needed to teach minority women about how the malady is spread and the how the vaccine Gardasil helps prevent infections.

"Many of the chronic diseases that we have found in the community can be prevented or controlled with more health education," Mercado said. "We have to start giving people the tools. And we haven't been doing it."

Minorities at risk

*Blacks account for more than 50% of HIV-infected Floridians.

*Non-whites have a 23% higher cancer death rate than whites.

*Hispanics are 26% more likely than non-Hispanic whites to be obese, increasing their risk factor for diabetes.

*Adults and children belonging to racial minority groups are less likely to receive appropriate oral health care.

*Black babies die at twice the rate of white infants.

*Blacks have a higher risk of dying from a stroke and at a much younger age than any other racial group.